scholarly journals Linguistic structures and functions of thesis and dissertation titles in Dentistry

2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Alberto Morales ◽  
Bexi Perdomo ◽  
Daniel Cassany ◽  
Rosa María Tovar ◽  
Élix Izarra
Keyword(s):  
Single Unit ◽  
English Language ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Nominal Phrase ◽  
Research Students ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Grammatical Structures

AbstractTitles play an important role in genre analysis. Cross-genre studies show that research paper and thesis titles have distinctive features. However, thesis and dissertation titles in the field of dentistry have thus far received little attention. Objective: To analyze the syntactic structures and their functions in English-language thesis and dissertation titles in dentistry. Methodology: We randomly chose 413 titles of English-language dentistry theses or dissertations presented at universities in 12 countries between January 2000 and June 2019. The resulting corpus of 5,540 running words was then analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, the two complementary focuses being grammatical structures and their functions. Results: The average title length was 13.4 words. Over half of the titles did not include any punctuation marks. For compound titles, we found that colons, dashes, commas, and question marks were used to separate the different components, colons being the most frequent. Four syntactic structures (nominal phrase, gerund phrase, full-sentence, and prepositional phrase) were identified for single-unit titles. Single-unit nominal phrase titles constituted the most frequent structure in the corpus, followed by compound titles. Four particular rhetorical combinations of compound title components were found to be present throughout the corpus. Conclusions: Titles of dentistry theses and dissertation in English echo the content of the text body and make an important contribution to fulfilling the text’s communicative purposes. Thus, teaching research students about the linguistic features of thesis titles would be beneficial to help them write effective titles and also facilitate assessment by teachers.

scholarly journals PREDICATE- ARGUMENT STRUCTURE OF EMOTIVE VERBS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (10(78)) ◽  
pp. 13-16
Author(s):  
Olga Baranovska
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
English Language ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Reflexive Verbs ◽  
Predicate Argument Structure ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
English Verb

This paper seeks to explore the category of emotiveness of the verb units in the lexico-semantic system of the English verb. The article characterizes the evolution of methods in this investigation of lexical units, basic notions of cognitive grammar, in particular. The predicate- argument structure of the verbs that designate emotive states has been defined. The conditions for the realization of grammatical structures have been presented. The survey studies the classification of the verbs according to their syntactic constructions, taking into account the relation of the subject and the object. As a result, the investigation highlights the features of the verbs that denote emotional relations and causatives. Experiencer argument, which can perform different syntactic functions, is an indispensable prerequisite for the predicate-argument structure of English emotive verbs. The algorithm for this analysis has been suggested. The predicate-argument structure of verb units expressing emotions in English and Ukrainian has been compared. Similar deep semantics of emotive verbs in English and Ukrainian finds a distinct expression in the surface structure, favouring different syntactic structures. A significant number of emotive verb units are expressed by intransitive, reflexive verbs with a postfix – sya in Ukrainian, while the constructions with adjectives and participles are characteristic of English.

scholarly journals Exploring English Language Students’ Difficulties in Listening Comprehension

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Rameshwar Jyoti
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Listening Comprehension ◽  
English Language ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Community Schools ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Listening Skill ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Language Students ◽  
Grammatical Structures

Listening skill is one of the four major skills of language that most language learners desire to get mastery in order to communicate effectively in different contexts. It is one of the most challenging skills for many students. The main aim of this study, therefore, was to explore English language students’ listening comprehension difficulties. I employed a survey research design as a research method. Randomly selected sixty male and sixty female students studying English at three community schools of Rupandehi district, Nepal took part in this study as research respondents. They all were from secondary level. A closed ended questionnaire with 24 items on students' listening problem was administered to elicit the data from the respondents. The results of questionnaire indicated that content of the listening text (e.g., unfamiliar words, idiom, feeling fatigue while listening to the long text) was the major source of listening difficulties for the students. The second source of difficulty was related to the listener that included lack of concentration with long listening text and existence of noise in the place.  The third difficulty included linguistic features such as complex grammatical structures, pronunciation and problems in distinguishing the word boundaries. And the last source of listening problem was concerned with speaker’s speed of speech and different accents. The findings also raise awareness of both teachers and students regarding the listening comprehension problems.

Means Of Reproduction Of Communicative Semantics In Synchronous Translation Of English-Language And Chinese-Language Economic And Political Texts In Ukrainian

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (27) ◽  
pp. 30-41
Author(s):  
Maryna Baklanova ◽  
Oleksandra Popova
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
English Language ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Simultaneous Translation

This article is devoted to the problem dealing with the reproduction of communicative semantics while translating English, Chinese economic and political texts into Ukrainian. The content and structure of simultaneous translation were analysed. A contrastive analysis of the linguistic features of the English, Chinese and Ukrainian communicative semantics was made. Some tactics enabling the reproduction of the texts under research into the Ukrainian language within simultaneous translation were specified. Key words: simultaneous translation, transformations, the Chinese language, the English language, the Ukrainian language, speech tempo, time frame.

Conflicting Discourses

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn Ciechanowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
English Language ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Bilingual Students ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
School Text ◽  
Content Coverage

This article provides micro analysis of one representative incident from a larger qualitative study to examine how third-grade bilingual students and their teacher negotiated academic disciplinary and popular culture discourses in a social studies unit on Jamestown and Pocahontas. Informed by discourse and linguistic analyses, this study explores the competing dominant and nondominant discourses as they intersected and overlapped in the complex literacy practices in this classroom. Ms. Montclair’s instruction was shaped by the textbook’s approach to social studies and accountability pressures of testing and content coverage. Yet the students drew from everyday popular resources in their thinking, taking up nonacademic discourses to understand content. This research explores the following questions: (a) What are the predominant discourses evident in the official curricular text and teacher’s enactment of it? (b) What are the discourses evident in children’s everyday resources drawn on to make sense of the school text? (c) How do specific linguistic features make possible these discourses and perspectives? Findings demonstrate that students navigated across multiple discourses that were different but represented dominant culture. As discourses intersected in class, participants provided a level of critical analyses but did not deeply take up nondominant perspectives despite their own positioning from linguistically and culturally nondominant backgrounds. By showing the complexity of literate and discursive practice, this article contributes to understandings of how bilingual and English language learner students confront the demands of academic disciplinary language, draw on their own resources to make sense of content, and require explicit instruction on language and social justice.

scholarly journals Recasts versus clarification requests: The relevance of linguistic target, proficiency, and communicative ability

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Mifka-Profozic
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Communicative Ability ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Language Classroom ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Grammatical Structures ◽  
Communicative Skill ◽  
Passe Compose

AbstractThis paper compares the effects of recasts and clarification requests as two implicit types of corrective feedback (CF) on learning two linguistic structures denoting past aspectual distinction in French, the passé composé and the imparfait. The participants in this classroom-based study are 52 high-school learners of French FL at a pre-intermediate level of proficiency (level B1 of CEFR). A distinctive feature of this study is the use of focused, context constrained communicative tasks in both treatment and tests. The paper specifically highlights the advantages of feedback using recasts for the acquisition of morpho-syntactically complex grammatical structures such as is the French passé composé. The study points to the participants’ communicative ability as an essential aspect of language proficiency, which seems to be crucial to bringing about the benefits of recasts. Oral communicative skill in a foreign language classroom is seen as a prerequisite for an appropriate interpretation and recognition of the corrective nature of recasts.

Markers of identification in Indigenous academic writing: A case study of genre innovation

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shurli Makmillen ◽  
Michelle Riedlinger
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Genre Studies ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Research Article ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Academic Genres

AbstractThis study contributes to research into genre innovation and scholarship exploring how Indigenous epistemes are disrupting dominant discourses of the academy. Using a case study approach, we investigated 31 research articles produced by Mäori scholars and published in the journal AlterNative between 2006 and 2018. We looked for linguistic features associated with self-positioning and self-identification. We found heightened ambiguous uses of “we”; a prevalence of verbs associated with personal (as opposed to discursive) uses of “I/we”; personal storytelling; and a privileging of Elders’ contributions to the existing state of knowledge. We argue these features reflect and reinforce Indigenous scholars’ social relations with particular communities of practice within and outside of the academy. They are also in keeping with Indigenous knowledge-making practices, protocols, and languages, and signal sites of negotiation and innovation in the research article. We present the implications for rhetorical genre studies and for teaching academic genres.

scholarly journals A Systemic-Functional Analysis of English Language Learners' Writing

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana C. DE OLIVEIRA
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Educational Practice ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Lexical Cohesion ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistic ◽  
Clause Combining ◽  
The University ◽  
Passing Score

This article presents a systemic-functional linguistic analysis of two writing samples of the University of California Analytical Writing Placement (AWP) Examination written by English language learners (ELLs). The analysis shows the linguistic features utilized in the two writing samples, one that received a passing score and one that received a failing score. The article describes some of the grammatical resources which are functional for expository writing, which are divided under three main categories: textual, interpersonal, and ideational resources. Following this brief description is the analysis of both essays in terms of these resources.. The configuration of grammatical features used in the essays make up the detached style of essay 1 and the more personal style of essay 2. These grammatical features include the textual resources of thematic choices and development, clause-combining strategies (connectors), and lexical cohesion; interpersonal resources of interpersonal metaphors of modality; and ideational resources of nominalization and abstractions as ideational metaphors. Implications for educational practice and recommendations for educators based on the analysis are provided.

Language and the Performance of English-Language Learners in Math Word Problems

2008 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARIA MARTINIELLO
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Word Problems ◽  
English Language ◽  
Assessment System ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Math Test ◽  
Math Proficiency

In this article, Maria Martiniello reports the findings of a study of the linguistic complexity of math word problems that were found to exhibit differential item functioning for English-language learners (ELLs) and non-ELLs taking the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) fourth-grade math test. It builds on prior research showing that greater linguistic complexity increases the difficulty of Englishlanguage math items for ELLs compared to non-ELLs of equivalent math proficiency. Through textual analyses, Martiniello describes the linguistic features of some of the 2003 MCAS math word problems that posed disproportionate difficulty for ELLs. Martiniello also uses excerpts from children's think-aloud transcripts to illustrate the reading comprehension challenges these features pose to Spanish-speaking ELLs. Through both DIF statistics and the voices of children, the article scrutinizes the appropriateness of inferences about ELLs' math knowledge based on linguistically complex test items.

scholarly journals Problems in Grammatical Structure: A Case Study of B.Ed. Student at the Education Department

sjesr ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 420-425
Author(s):  
Dr. Gulzar Ahmed ◽  
Dr. Syed Shafqat Ali Shah ◽  
Dr. Muhammad Nisar
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
English Language ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Education Department ◽  
Undergraduate Level ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Grammatical Structures

English grammar is how words in the English language are translated into text. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, and phrases, up to and including full-text structure. The main objective of the authors is to discover the difficulties of grammatical structures for students at the Department of Teacher Education. Shikarpur Shaikh Ayaz University. The students of B.Ed. undergraduate level of education department was selected as a data population. The fifty students were randomly selected from the education department. There is quantitative research underway. The researchers used a testing tool for a questionnaire. The student's collected data were analyzed by SPSS-Descriptive statistics.  Some of the challenges and problems are facing during the English Grammar lesson of B.Ed. students. The students have used the conditional verb and also the proper use of a phrasal verb that is one of the problems with students. The use of an article is also one of the fundamental problems for undergraduate students. Teachers should make it possible for students to practice these materials either through activity-based teaching or through the CLT method so that they can be more attentive to EFL learning and not focus on translation alone.

scholarly journals Olympiad in the English Language as a Form of Alternative Language Assessment

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
Evgeniya Bolshakova
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Alternative Assessment ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Language Competition ◽  
Intellectual Abilities ◽  
Task Types

Although a variety of the English language written olympiads (language competitions) exist, fairly little is known about how they are different from traditional forms of language assessment.  In Russia, olympiads in the English language are now gaining currency because they provide an opportunity to reveal creative thinking and intellectual abilities of pupils.  The present study examined major differences between language olympiads and traditional forms of language assessment.  A comparison of five main olympiads in the English language in terms of their levels, assessed skills and task types is made and their distinctive features are outlined.  The results of a testing of a new written olympiad of the Higher School of Economics “Vysshaya proba” (Highest Degree) in the English language are analyzed.  A set of test items was developed for 120 secondary school pupils in Moscow to find out whether they can easily cope with non-traditional form of assessment, which is language olympiad.  The results indicate that language competition as a form of alternative assessment may be introduced at schools to encourage better learning.

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